Updates and Newsletters: The main news stories from the major sources, selected, compiled, and occasionally commented on by Michael Novakhov ("Mike Nova") | Public RSS Feeds on the various topics of Global Security | Topics oriented news reviews

Bob McDonnell and his wife Mary stand accused of accepting more than $165,000 in exchange for favours

After former Governor Bob McDonnell took the witness stand in his public corruption trial, a narrative worthy of a night-time soap opera got even juicier.

Jurors and everyone following the story that has dominated front pages across Virginia for four weeks had already heard how McDonnells wife, Maureen, had turned the executive mansion into a house of workplace horrors with her incessant yelling at employees. They also heard how she sought the attentions of a vitamin entrepreneur while her husband was away or preoccupied with his job.

US Defense Secretary said on Thursday that Islamic State militants could possibly pose an even bigger threat to the United States than Al-Qaeda, and pledged efforts to weaken the group would continue.

Speaking at a press conference at the Pentagon, Hagel also said that potential airstrikes in Syria are on the table, and defended the unsuccessful attempt by American Special Forces to rescue murdered photojournalist James Foley and other Western hostages.

“[Islamic State militants] are an imminent threat to every interest we have, whether it’s in Iraq or anywhere else,” he said, as quoted by Reuters.

Responding to a question on whether or not the extremists are a threat on the scale of Al-Qaeda, which carried out the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center, Hagel noted that “ISIL is as sophisticated and well-funded as any group that we have seen.”

“They’re beyond just a terrorist group. They marry ideology, a sophistication of strategic and tactical military prowess. They are tremendously well-funded. Oh, this is beyond anything that we’ve seen. So we must prepare for everything,” he added.

The comments come in the wake of a graphic video released by Islamic State earlier this week, which showed a masked, English-speaking man beheading Foley and threatening to murder another one if President Barack Obama did not halt his renewed airstrike campaign in Iraq. The individual is thought to be British born, and a member of a trio of hostage caretakers known by the group as ‘The Beatles,’ in reference to their shared UK nationality.

The militant Sunni group IS represents an extreme take on Islam, and began increasing its strength as civil war raged through Syria over the last three years. When the group initiated its campaign in Iraq, it was able to quickly take over territory in the western and northern parts of the country, in part thanks to the toleration of Sunni communities disaffected with the Shia-led government in Baghdad.

Its brutal tactics began making headlines around the world as it targeted religious and ethnic minorities, threatening them with death if they did not convert to their own brand of Islam. When militants forced tens of thousands of people up a mountain in order to avoid death, the US reacted by renewing humanitarian and military action in Iraq. At the press conference Thursday, Hagel said this effort has been effective so far.

“American air strikes and American arms and assistance helped Iraqi and Kurdish forces blunt ISIL’s advance around Arbil, where American diplomats and troops are working, and help the Iraqis retake and hold-Mosul dam,” he said.

At the same time, however, General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, cautioned that the Islamic State could not be defeated without international efforts aimed at its base in Syria.

“This is an organization that has an apocalyptic, end-of-days strategic vision that will eventually have to be defeated,” he said, according to the Huffington Post. “Can they be defeated without addressing that part of the organization that resides in Syria? The answer is no.”

Meanwhile, the Global Post published the letter sent by IS to Foley’s family about one week before his death. In the letter, the group called its hostages “the scum of [US] society,” and said it would execute Foley “as a direct result” of American “transgressions” in Iraq.

The letter states that the Foley family was given “many chances to negotiate” his release, but the Post disputed this statement, saying the journalist was missing for more than a year before IS even made its initial contact with the family. After demanding about $132 million, it did not send another message until August 12, just one day before the video of Foley’s murder was released.

As RT reported previously, US and UK intelligence agencies are working on identifying Foley’s killer, with British Prime Minister David Cameron already admitting on Thursday that the individual seen in the video appeared to be British. One of the IS member’s former hostages claimed his name was “John,” saying he is a key negotiator for the militants and is “intelligent, educated and a devout believer in radical Islamic teachings.”

Britain's capital is Europe's third worst city to live in, according to a report out last week. Is this a fair verdict?

According to the Economist Intelligence Unit's annual index, London is among Europe's least "livable" cities. The index looks at a number of factors, including stability, healthcare, environment, education and social unrest.

10 Western companies getting slammed in RussiaQ13 FOXLONDON (CNNMoney) — Name brand American and European conglomerates are feeling the impact from the turmoil in Russia. Many are reporting slower Russian sales and, in some cases, store closures as the Ukraine-Russia conflict drags on. Most have ...and more »

KIEV — A convoy of Russian aid trucks that had entered Ukraine without permission returned to Russia on Saturday, but Ukrainian officials continued to express alarm, saying that Russians had loaded sophisticated military equipment onto the vehicles before they left.

Diplomatic row grows after Putin insists that the Poroshenko government in Kiev forced his hand

A humanitarian convoy to eastern Ukraine has begun returning to Russia after delivering a reported 1,800 tonnes of supplies and sparking yet another row between Moscow and the west.

The Russian state news agency RIA Novosti said that the first group of trucks had returned to Russia and that more were being inspected by Russian customs officials. The US had previously warned that Russia could face "additional consequences" if it did not remove the convoy.

The videotaped killing of kidnapped journalist James Foley prompted President Barack Obama this week to condemn his ruthless executioners — the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, or ISIS — as “a cancer.”

“We’ve made very clear time and again that if you come after Americans, we’re going to come after you wherever you are — and that’s what's going to guide our planning in the days to come,” Rhodes told reporters.

The marauding militant group wants to carve out an Islamic state straddling Syria and Iraq, essentially a jihadist safe haven. Stomping out ISIS now presents a number of options for the Obama administration — each one with its own advantages and potential pitfalls.

NBC News

Paste HTML to embed video:

And with at least three other Americans, including freelance journalist Steven Sotloff, still being held hostage by the terror network, the U.S. is under even more pressure to outline an effective battle plan.

Here are tactics the U.S. is already using or may want to consider in its bid to thwart ISIS, according to counter-terrorism and foreign policy experts, and the pros and cons of pursuing each:

Continue an airstrike campaign that could include Syria

Why it could work: This month, the U.S. began a targeted campaign against ISIS in Iraq, focusing mainly on the Mosul Dam, which terrorists have threatened to overrun. The dam is key because it supplies power and water to millions. U.S. Central Command said Friday that 60 of the 93 airstrikes launched have been to support Iraqi and Kurdish forces on the ground as they root out ISIS from the areas around the dam. Officials say the action has been successful.

To further erode ISIS’s grip in the region, the U.S. could look into similar airstrikes in Syria, where the terror organization grew its ranks amid the civil war that began in 2011. Syria remains a refuge for ISIS members, and intelligence officials say some of its commanders have retreated there during the airstrikes in Iraq. It wasn’t immediately known whether self-appointed ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has also fled to Syria.

Rhodes on Friday didn’t say specifically what new military plans Obama could be presented with, but suggested operations could extend past Iraq.

“We’re actively considering what’s going to be necessary to deal with [a] threat and not going to be restricted by borders,” Rhodes said.

Why there are drawbacks: “It’s not as simple as, ‘A-ha, bomb Syria now,’” said Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, a senior fellow with the national security think tank Foundation for Defense of Democracies. The U.S. would have to decide how it would inform Syria's government and coordinate with its military forces, as the two countries maintain a chilly relationship.

In addition, the possibility of an air raid killing civilians in Syria, a country already decimated by war, would only bruise the U.S.’s image, Gartenstein-Ross said.

“In taking a heavier role, we have to make sure we don’t end up doing more harm than good — that we don’t end up killing civilian populations,” he added.

Nightly News

Paste HTML to embed video:

Put more U.S. troops on the field to train or possibly fight

Why it could work: While Obama has so far pledged to not put combat troops on the battlefield, heordered last week for another 130 military “advisers” to deploy to northern Iraq to help protect minority sects threatened by ISIS. That’s on top of the nearly 800 troops already authorized to go to Iraq to assist and train the country’s forces against ISIS, which seeks to topple the central government in Baghdad.

While Obama may avoid having U.S. troops at the forefront of fighting, employing experienced American security forces would help — with theoretically 100 of these teams being deployed, said Michael O’Hanlon, a senior fellow with the nonpartisan Brookings Institution. He said those forces wouldn’t be the main combat units in the field, but could assist Iraqi soldiers as needed in the heat of battle.

Why there are drawbacks: Military force is important, said Gartenstein-Ross, but troops on the ground, even in a background role, could get dicey. “It’s expensive, there’s absolutely a risk of troops getting killed and it could also serve as a symbol [of a U.S. invasion],” he added.

Aid ISIS’s enemies — including Syria’s president

Why it could work: ISIS's ability in the past few months to seize whole communities in Iraq while obtaining heavy weaponry is taken “very seriously,” Rhodes said. The group appears to have surpassed al Qaeda in its ability to attract funding and build its network.

Such a level of sophistication has led the U.S. to aid ISIS's enemies — the Iraqi government and Kurdish regional forces — with military support. That's something that must continue, said Gartenstein-Ross. He added that there are likely ISIS members who are malcontent, given the alleged atrocities carried out, and are willing to turn.

“This organization is extraordinarily brutal,” Gartenstein-Ross said. “If you can locate ISIS members who are dissatisfied and give them a chance to defect and then publicize their story, you start to create a public-relations campaign against ISIS.”

TODAY

Paste HTML to embed video:

O’Hanlon said a deal with Syrian President Bashar Assad could be one alternative for the U.S. to wipe out ISIS. While Assad and the U.S. aren’t on friendly terms, both share this common enemy. As a compromise, the U.S. could consider allowing Assad to remain in control of part of Syria in exchange for the U.S. having a greater role in eliminating ISIS.

Why there are drawbacks: Aiding the Iraqi or Syrian governments doesn’t guarantee the U.S. and other Western nations admiration in the region. The U.S., for instance, would still need to hold Assad — himself accused of chemical weapons attacks on his own people — at arm’s length, experts say. In Iraq, there are also no guarantees the Shiite-led government in Baghdad will be as inclusive of the various sects — a major complaint among Sunni Muslims, who make up ISIS.

A new prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, is poised to replace Nouri al-Maliki after he failed to quell the violence during his two terms in office. Obama has called for someone less divisive, but it’s unclear if U.S.-backed al-Abadi can deliver.

Maintain a less visible and heavy-handed profile in Iraq

Why it could work: The beheading of Foley, a 40-year-old freelance journalist for the Global Post, was apparently done in retaliation for U.S.-led airstrikes in recent weeks. Continuing or expanding American airstrikes could provoke ISIS again — leading to possible executions of other Western hostages, said Cyrus Ali Contractor, a political science professor at the University of Houston and a member of the Center for International and Comparative Studies. The U.S., while it can’t back down, also has to be careful about making the fight appear to be solely America versus ISIS, he added.

“I think it is better for America to declare a role in the back, coordinating some of these operations while helping the Iraqi military to get in shape and tackle this ISIS threat,” Contractor said. “America will need to tone it down, so to speak. Not be so blatant in what it’s doing.”

Why there are drawbacks: The decision on how to handle ISIS is as much a political one as it is a military operation, experts say. With midterm elections looming, Obama will have to look at whether a public show of force before November — or a more behind-the-scenes approach for now — would be warranted, observers say.

How he might best respond could be used against him by political foes who might perceive him as weak — and hurt Democrats running in the congressional midterm elections, Contractor said.

Either way, with ISIS losing some of its momentum in recent weeks, now is the time for a decisive course, Gartenstein-Ross said.

“We just have to be aware that any undertaking can’t be done with such a heavy hand that it would backfire on us,” he added.

Meanwhile, Kurdish forces have been struggling to defend themselves against IS fighters across northeast Iraq and are appealing for more international help.

There has been fighting around towns including Jalula and Sa'dya, which have been controlled by the well-armed Sunni extremists for several weeks.

In Kirkuk, officials say three explosions near Kurdish military stations have killed more than 10 people, while in Irbil, the capital of the Kurdistan region, local media said a car bomb had exploded.

IS insurgents have seized large swathes of the country since a June offensive but have been hit by US airstrikes in some areas including around Mosul Dam.

However, Sky's Chief Correspondent Stuart Ramsay, reporting from outside Jalula, north of Baghdad, said the Kurdish peshmerga fighters want more weaponry from the outside world and are "getting little or no air support".

Thousands of peshmerga and counter-terrorism soldiers have been deployed, including many around the town.

He said the Kurds have some heavy weapons but the equipment is old, while the jihadists "have modern equipment and lots of money".

Ramsay said the two sides are fighting to control territory not the towns themselves as IS have them "under total lockdown".

The Kurds are trying to cut their supply lines and one fighter told Sky News: "We need weapons to make the battle equal."

Roadside bombs laid by the extremists are also "causing more casualties than ever before," he added.

Meanwhile, eight people have been killed after a suicide bomber blew up a vehicle packed with explosives at the interior ministry's intelligence headquarters in Baghdad.

It comes a day after a sectarian attack at a mosque killed at least 68 Sunni Muslims, plunging efforts to form a united front against the jihadists into crisis.

Officials say a suicide bomber blew himself up in the Imam Wais mosque north of Baghdad, with Shia militiamen picking off fleeing worshippers with machine guns.

The attack, in Diyala province, is seen as a blow to government efforts to secure backing from Sunni groups in its battle against the extremists.

Mr al Abadi, a moderate Shia, is attempting to form a more inclusive government following the resignation of outgoing PM Nouri al Maliki.

But two influential Sunni politicians - Parliamentary Speaker Salim al Jabouri and Deputy Prime Minister Saleh al Mutlak - have now pulled out of talks with the main Shia political alliance after the massacre.

The US has ramped up its rhetoric over the beheading of journalist James Foley.

In Washington, Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes said the murder "represents a terrorist attack against our country".

The family of James Foley, the American journalist beheaded by the Islamic State terror group, believes he may have volunteered to be killed to spare the lives of his fellow hostages. Foley's brother Michael says he has no doubt that James would have sacrificed himself. The Foley family was attempting to raise ransom money for the journalist's release, but had nowhere near the $130 million the terrorists had demanded. While European nations have paid multi-million dollar ransoms for their kidnapped citizens, the United States does not make ransom payments. The Islamic State group sent the Foley family an email days ahead of the killing, saying "we will not stop until we quench our thirst for your blood." Despite the solemn tone of the email, Foley's father, John, said he thought the email signaled an opportunity to negotiate a ransom deal. The family had not heard from their son's captors in months. John Foley said he did not realize how "brutal" the Islamic State group is. The family did not learn about a failed secret U.S. mission to rescue their son until President Barack Obama called them to offer his condolences. The family says they were "comforted" by a telephone call they received from Pope Francis. The Foleys are Catholic. Foley, a freelance journalist, was kidnapped in Syria in 2012. The Islamic State group has its headquarters in Syria, and that is where Foley is believed to have been beheaded. U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel says the Islamic State group is a terror threat "beyond anything we have seen." He describes the militants as better trained, armed, organized and financed than any other terrorist organization, including al-Qaida. Britain's Home Secretary Teresa May says she is preparing a new law to counter British Muslim extremists. She says the threat to Britain from jihadists will continue for decades. The Islamic State militant who beheaded Foley spoke with a British accent and is thought to be a British citizen.

U.S. President Barack Obama says more small businesses than ever are selling their products aboard, but that could all change unless Congress takes action. The president said Saturday in his weekly address that unless Congress renews the charter of the U.S. Export-Import Bank, nearly 300,000 businesses could lose their international markets. The bank provides loans, loan guarantees and credit insurance to foreign buyers of U.S. products. He said lawmakers have reauthorized the charter 16 times because the bank works and pays for itself. Some Republicans lawmakers who supported the bank in the past, now want to put it out of business. President Obama said if Congress fails to act, thousands of businesses will take "a completely unnecessary hit." In the Republican address, party chairman Reliance Priebus says there will be less government spending, flexible health care and better education under complete Republican control of Congress. The party needs to pick up six seats in the November elections to win back the Senate.

Thousands of social-media users were unwittingly exposed to horrifying images of James Foley's execution in the hours after Islamic State (IS) militants posted video of his beheading online.

It was exhibit A in the extremist group's two-pronged propaganda campaign: inflict fear in the West while using the same imagery to inspire and recruit radicals from around the world.

But since the video first appeared on August 19, major companies like Twitter and YouTube have increased their efforts to take down offensive material and remove accounts linked to terrorist groups. IS, though, appears to be adapting to the shutdowns by moving to open-source and more decentralized social networks that are difficult to regulate and also experimenting with other tools that are less popular in the West.

"It would be bizarre to imagine that just because Facebook or Twitter was slightly more difficult for them to use they would stop communicating with each other or spreading their message," says Jamie Bartlett, author of "The Dark Net," a new book about hidden online communities. "It's in keeping with the modus operandi both of what we know about terrorist organizations and what we would expect any organization to do when they think their message is being unfairly censored."

According to the Vocativ news site, an official IS forum has laid out a five-point plan to fight the account suspensions, which includes building its own servers and redirecting supporters to platforms besides Twitter and Facebook. It also suggested hacking Western TV channels.

Diaspora, a social network whose servers are distributed among a network of "podmins" rather than centralized, confirmed shortly after the Twitter and YouTube clampdown that IS supporters had begun moving to its platform.

The nonprofit expressed concern but said removing the content would be more difficult than it is for traditional social networks.

'Podmins'

"Anyone is able to use Diaspora's software in any way they choose," the company said in a statement. "We cannot therefore prevent anyone from using the software; we are also not able to influence the decisions of podmins."

But it also said that "larger" pods had already removed IS-related accounts and posts and a follow-up statement said "all of the most active accounts" had been closed.

On Vkontakte, a social network that is more popular than Facebook in Russia and some Russian-speaking countries of the former Soviet Union, an account set up earlier this month began posting updates shortly after the video of Foley -- who had been missing for almost two years -- appeared online.

The subscribers to the page appear to be overwhelmingly Russian speakers and many have adopted some version of the IS logo as their avatar. One of the page moderators, who identifies himself as Seyfulla Adiyev, is active on other online web forums and appears to be posting photos directly from IS-controlled territory in Syria and Iraq.

Nearly 300 people have subscribed to this Islamic State (IS) support page on VKontakte. Some use the branding of the extremist group as their avatar.

IS has as many as 80,000 members in Iraq and Syria, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, with tens of thousands allegedly recruited from abroad. The Sunni-Islamist group, which now controls major cities in Iraq and Syria and seeks to create an Islamic Caliphate, has committed mass executions against Shi'ite Muslims and religious minorities in territory it has conquered.

The page on VKontakte violates the site's own rules on extremism and may itself be taken down soon, but Bartlett, who also directs the London-based Centre for the Analysis of Social Media, says that in the long-term the group will continue to find ways to skirt censors -- particularly as tools meant to protect online privacy gain traction.

As concern over government and corporate access to user data has grown in the West, so too has investment in technologies that put online privacy and Internet freedom at a premium. Internet censorship circumvention tools that aid IS can also benefit online activists and dissidents in authoritarian countries that punish dissent.

"The people who make these platforms are fully aware that they're constantly faced with this dilemma," says Bartlett. Generally though, "they're willing to accept all the terrible awful propaganda if it also means that people can speak freely."

»The Rundown -- August 2222/08/14 08:55 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinksmikenova shared this story from Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty. RFE/RL in the Media # Carl Schreck's profile of American who died fighting in Ukraine quoted in "New York Times" and RT # Business Insider mentions Luke Johnson and Carl ...

»Home Resales Rise in July22/08/14 08:12 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinksmikenova shared this story from Wall Street Journal What's News. Sales of previously owned home rose last month when they were expected to fall. Marcy Norton has this story and more. Download x-audio: http://feeds.wsjonline.com/~r/ws...

»Latin Roots: 'Mystical South America'22/08/14 08:11 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinksmikenova shared this story from Stories from NPR. Writer and radio personality Catalina Maria Johnson explores a musical movement in Argentina. She first heard the music through visual arts and describes it as ecological, spiritual and o...

»Hamas Admits Kidnapping Israeli Teens22/08/14 07:18 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinksmikenova shared this story from TIME » Time Sections » World. (JERUSALEM) — A senior Hamas leader has said the group carried out the kidnapping and killing of three Israeli teens in the West Bank in June — the first time anyone from the ...

»11:13 pm22/08/14 07:18 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinksmikenova shared this story from World News | Breaking US News and International News Headlines - GlobalPost. 11:13 pm Charles M. Sennott War reporting in the time of the Islamic State Correspondent James Foley's execution by the Islamic ...

»Israel kills three Hamas commanders22/08/14 07:16 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinksmikenova shared this story from Network Front | The Guardian. Islamist group confirms loss of senior figures, while confusion remains over fate of its military chief after air strike on Tuesday Israel dealt a blow to Hamas on Thursday by...

»What it will take to beat ISIS21/08/14 16:16 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinksmikenova shared this story from CNN.com - World. "We need long-term to take out ISIS' leadership, to degrade their operational capabilities, to cut off their financing sources, to go after them in a comprehensive way to cut off their abi...

»Who else has ISIS threatened?21/08/14 16:16 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinksmikenova shared this story from CNN.com - World. When freelance journalist Steven Sotloff disappeared during a reporting trip to Syria in August 2013, his family kept the news a secret. Families of hostages are frequently advised to do t...

»What the CIA is trying to hide21/08/14 15:26 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinksmikenova shared this story from The Hill: Congress Blog. Beginning in the 1990s, and accelerating after September 11, the CIA flew terrorism suspects to secret police custody in Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Morocco, and Libya. Many of them were...

»The Rescue That Wasn’t21/08/14 10:07 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinksmikenova shared this story from TIME » Time Sections » World. The Pentagon spoiled Americans with will its near-perfect grab of Osama bin Laden in May 2011. Save for a wrecked helicopter, Operation Neptune Spear went off without a hitch ...

»Cops: Couple stole from MH370 victims21/08/14 10:06 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinksmikenova shared this story from CNN.com - World. Malaysian police have charged two people over the alleged theft of around $35,000 (110,600 Malaysian ringgits) from the bank accounts of four passengers on missing Malaysia Airlines Flight...

»Bayamón19/08/14 09:44 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinksmikenova shared this story from Welcome to Puerto Rico! History, Government, Geography, and Culture.. Bayamón The island's second most populous city Caguas Caguas derives its name from a local Indian chief (Caguax) Cayey Home of Monument...